GOD’S LOVE AND TRUTH

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  (Matthew 22:36-40 NRSV)

The "sweet spot" of spiritual power comes when God's love and God's truth are delivered in concert stereo.  Many congregations and believers are known for either their command of God's truth through Scripture or their abundant love of all creation.  It is time for more followers of Christ to consider them both an inseparable commodity.

At a monastery, a monk challenged us with this thought; "The great commandment is not two commands, but one.  They are inseparable."

God's pure love is unable to flow abundantly through a person who has not been filled up by it.  I am not saying you cannot love another, or that you cannot act in loving ways.  The unconditional love we need and seek is sourced at the wellspring of God.  To give it, you must first drink it in from the Source; there is no other way.  You cannot be a delivery vehicle of God's truth if you are not a recipient of God's unconditional and abundant love.

-- Larry Malone in “UM Men's Magazine”, Spring 2004


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